Enable IMAP4 in Exchange 2013

Overview

When you install Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, IMAP4 client connectivity is not enabled. To enable it, you must start the following IMAP services to enable connectivity. If there is a server running both roles, both services must be running and configured to start automatically..

• Microsoft Exchange IMAP4 service (MSExchangeImap4)—for servers that are running the Client Access Server role (CAS)
• Microsoft Exchange IMAP4 Backend service—for servers running the Mailbox Server role.

After you enable IMAP4, Exchange 2013 accepts unsecured IMAP4 client communications on port 143 and over port 993 using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

NOTE: By default Exchange 2013 IMAP4 Services allow unsecured connections on port 143.  Consider disabling unsecured IMAP4 connections on port 143.

Reference: Microsoft Technet.

Procedures

• To enable IMAP4 Client Connectivity:
  1. On each server that is running the Client Access Server role, open the Exchange Management Shell as Administrator and execute the following commands:

     Set-service msExchangeIMAP4 -startuptype automatic

     Start-service msExchangeIMAP4

  2. On each server that is running the Mailbox Server role, open the Exchange Management Shell as Administrator and execute the following commands:

     Set-service msExchangeIMAP4BE -startuptype automatic

     Start-service msExchangeIMAP4BE

• To verify that the services are running and configured to start automatically:
  1. On each Exchange server that is running the Client Access Server (CAS) role or the Mailbox Server role, execute the following command:

     Get-Service *IMAP4* | Select-Object -Property *

Example

This example shows a single-instance Exchange 2013 deployment with both the Client Access Server role IMAP4 service ( MSExchangeImap4) and Mailbox Server role IMAP4 service ( MSExchangeIMAP4BE) running and configured to start automatically.